Table of Contents

This study is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA), the aging program within ICPSR. NACDA
is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Heath (NIH).

National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II): Neuroscience Project (ICPSR 28683)

Principal Investigator(s):Ryff, Carol D., University of Wisconsin-Madison; Davidson, Richard, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Summary:

The Neuroscience study is Project 5 of the MIDUS longitudinal study, a national survey of more than 7,000 Americans (aged 25 to 74) begun in 1994. The purpose of the larger study was to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in understanding age-related differences in physical and mental health. With support from the National Institute on Aging, a longitudinal follow-up of the original MIDUS samples [core sample (N = 3,487), metropolitan over-samples (N = 757), twins (N = 957 pairs), and siblings (N = 950)] was co... (more info)

The Neuroscience study is Project 5 of the MIDUS longitudinal study, a national survey of more than 7,000 Americans (aged 25 to 74) begun in 1994. The purpose of the larger study was to investigate the role of behavioral, psychological, and social factors in understanding age-related differences in physical and mental health. With support from the National Institute on Aging, a longitudinal follow-up of the original MIDUS samples [core sample (N = 3,487), metropolitan over-samples (N = 757), twins (N = 957 pairs), and siblings (N = 950)] was conducted in 2004-2006. Guiding hypotheses, at the most general level, were that behavioral and psychosocial factors are consequential for health (physical and mental). A description of the study and findings from it are available on the MIDUS Web site. The Neuroscience Project of MIDUS II contains data from 331 respondents. These respondents include two distinct subsamples, all of whom completed both the Project 1 Survey and the Project 4 biomarker assessment at University of Wisconsin-Madison: (1) longitudinal (n = 223) and (2) Milwaukee (n = 108). The Milwaukee group contained individuals who participated in the baseline MIDUS Milwaukee study, initiated in 2005. The purpose of the Neuroscience Project was to examine the central circuitry associated with individual differences in affective style that represent a continuum from vulnerability to resilience, and characterize some of the peripheral consequences of these central profiles for biological systems that may be relevant to health. The primary aims were to: (1) characterize individual differences in both emotional reactivity and emotional recovery using psychophysiological measures such as corrugator electromyography and eyeblink startle magnitude, (2) characterize individual differences in brain morphology, in particular amygdala and hippocampal volume, using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), (3) characterize individual differences in activity within the neural circuitry of emotion regulation using both electroencephalography and fMRI, and (4) test the ability of the central indices in this project to predict the comprehensive array of health, cognitive, psychological, social, and life challenge factors assessed in the other MIDUS projects. To probe individual differences in emotional reactivity and recovery (a key component of regulation) the Neuroscience Project examined both psychophysiological and fMRI measures during the presentation of emotional (positive and negative) and neutral pictures, and these same measures during a post-picture period. The logic of this strategy is that continued activation during the recovery period following a negative stimulus is indicative of poor automatic emotion regulation. Respondents in the Neuroscience Project are a representative subsample of the MIDUS (Midlife in the United States) survey.

Study Description

Citation

Ryff, Carol D., and Richard Davidson. National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS II): Neuroscience Project. ICPSR28683-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-10-25. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR28683.v2

Universe:
Adult noninstitutionalized population in the contiguous United States.

Data Types:
experimental data,
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

All data files in the MIDUS study (both longitudinal and cross-sectional) can be linked using a key variable called M2ID.

Currently, only the psychophysiological and behavioral data are available as the structural and fMRI data are still being processed.

The DDI codebook (PDF file) and the XML file (contained in a .zip package) released by ICPSR were provided by MIDUS and were not changed in any way by ICPSR. These original files do not reflect any of the processing done by ICPSR.

Methodology

Sample:
All respondents participating in MIDUS II (ICPSR 4652) or the Milwaukee study (ICPSR 22840) who completed both Project 1 and Project 4 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were eligible to participate in the Neuroscience assessments.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Created online analysis version with question text.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2010-09-24

Version History:

2011-10-25 The document titled DDI codebook has been renamed Codebook.